NGOs Call
for Change during National Strategy Meeting of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform in
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Dhaka, 13 December 2013 –
Bangladeshi member organisations of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a global
coalition of human rights, labour rights and environmental organisations
seeking to prevent hazardous shipbreaking practices, called upon the business and
government stakeholders in Bangladesh to join forces and ensure clean and safe
ship recycling. During the National Strategy Meeting of the NGO Shipbreaking
Platform, all members stressed that the shipbreaking industry as well as the
Government of Bangladesh were doing too little to protect people and the
environment from the harmful impacts of shipbreaking activities. At least
around 20 people died in the shipbreaking yards in 2013 according to data
collected by the different member organisation of the Platform and press
reports – a high figure for a total number of workers between 10,000-20,000.
There are no authoritative figures as neither the industry nor the authorities
publish information on accidents and casualties.
“Even when the High Court
of Bangladesh has said that shipbreaking should be strictly regulated and
should not take place directly on beaches, but rather in proper structures such
as docks, the government does not even enforce its own laws or the High Court’s
orders directed to the industry, nor does it propose real alternatives to
hazardous beaching,”, says Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Chief Executive of the
Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA). “If Bangladesh does not
comply with the international law on transboundary movement of hazardous
wastes, it will remain a dumping ground for the developed countries. It will
allow some companies to make huge profits at the cost of the environment. It is
totally unacceptable that environment, health and safety are made subordinate
to a deadly industry”.
“Occupational health and
safety when breaking ships on mudflats is a disaster: the risk of accidents is
very high,” says Mujibur Rahman Bhuiyan, Vice-Chairman of the Bangladesh
Institute for Labour Studies (BILS). “Moreover, workers are exposed to
hazardous substances such as asbestos and toxic fumes. We can only estimate the
extent of dangerous occupational diseases such as asbestosis that drastically
reduce the life expectancy of workers”.
“There is a joint
responsibility of all business stakeholders involved in this industry to make
it clean and safe. Next to the shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh, the ship
owners who are mostly based in Europe, North America, China or Japan have the
primary responsibility to ensure the clean and safe recycling of their old
ships”, says Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director of the Brussels-based
secretariat of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. “It is unacceptable that most
ship owners just externalise the cost of shipbreaking to countries such as
Bangladesh. While peoples’ lives are at stake, they continue to make huge
profits from selling their ships. Substandard practices perpetuate the circle
of poverty instead of ensuring sustainable livelihoods.”
“Shipbreaking workers are
particularly vulnerable with the absence of health and safety rights at work.
Establishing healthy trade union institution and ensure collective bargaining
power of workers in this sector is therefore essential to improve better
working and living conditions, says Repon Chowdhury, Executive Director of the
Bangladesh Occupational Health, Safety and Environment Foundation (OSHE). “We
call on the Government to demonstrate real political commitment to effectively
enforce labour law at yard level towards making the shipbreaking industry
decent, green and 100% compliant”.
“In 2008, YPSA in a joint
study with the NGO Shipbreaking Platform and the International Federation for
Human Rights (FIDH) found that up to 25% of the workers in the yards are
children. This is unacceptable in an industry that the Government itself has
declared extremely hazardous”, says Md. Arifur Rahman, Chief Executive of Young
Power in Social Action (YPSA). “Also in the last two years we have documented
workers as young as 15 years who died in accidents – proof that adolescent
workers are still employed.”
The NGO Shipbreaking
Platform and its members demand clean and safe ship recycling globally and
oppose the toxic trade in end-of-life vessels between the ship owning countries
and countries such as Bangladesh, Indian and Pakistan where ships are scrapped
directly on beaches without proper precautions for safety, health and
environment. They called for a joint effort by Governments, the maritime
industry and international organisations to ensure clean and safe ship
dismantling.
CONTACT
Patrizia Heidegger, Executive
Director, NGO Shipbreaking Platform
In Dhaka: 0171 1188597. patrizia@shipbreakingplatform.org
Delphine Reuter, Communications
Officer, NGO Shipbreaking Platform
In Brussels: 0032 484 305
556. delphine@shipbreakingplatform.org
Source: NGO
Shipbreaking Platform. 13 December 2013
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